Let's erect a plaque to Barry Cryer
Calls for comic to be remembered at Mornington Crescent
Calls are growing for Barry Cryer to be commemorated with a blue plaque at Mornington Crescent underground station in London.
The comic was a keen player of the game that shares a name with the Tube stop on Radio 4 panel show I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue – and fans say it would be a fitting tribute.
Cryer’s family and Michael Palin have backed calls for the plaque – and now Chortle has started a petition to try to make it happen.
The station already has a plaque for another former panellist, Willie Rushton, who died in 1996. Cryer and the Private Eye co-founder were close friends and toured together with the live show Two Old Farts In The Night
And in 2010 the pub across the street was renamed The Lyttelton Arms after Clue’s late host, Humphrey Lyttelton.
Barry’s son Bob told local newspaper The Camden New Journal that the family was ‘delighted’ by the idea of a plaque, adding: ‘It would be a wonderful way to reunite him with two of his favourite people: Willie and Humph.’
He also hoped that fellow Clue panellist Tim Brooke-Taylor, who died from Covid in April 2020, might also be similarly remembered.
Palin, who worked with Cryer onThe Frost Report in the late 1960s, added: ‘Barry would probably have had a joke about blue plaques, because he had a joke for everything. He never took himself too seriously at all.
‘In a way he was rather like David Attenborough – he did the same thing and did it wonderfully. He never wanted to be anyone but himself.
‘I owe him an enormous debt and a plaque would be a nice idea to honour him.’
But he added: ‘Barry was never one who wanted honours, he just wanted to make people laugh. ‘
Cryer – who died last week at the age of 86 – joined Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden in unveiling the plaque to Rushton directly opposite the ticket barriers at Mornington Crescent in 2002.
That plaque was tribute by Comic Heritage, but the charity has been dormant for more than a decade.
And to be even be considered for an official English Heritage blue plaque, the proposed recipient must have died at least 20 years ago. The rule us meant to ensure that the contribution of the person being honoured is lasting enough.
A Transport of London spokesperson said: 'We are aware of the impact that Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke-Taylor, and many other well-loved comedians have had in raising awareness of the Underground through the Mornington Crescent game. This impact is something we will consider celebrating at the station in the future.'
Mornington Crescent first appeared on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue in 1978. Lyttelton once explained that the game was invented to befuddle a producer who was unpopular with the panellists. One day, they were drinking, when they heard him coming. ‘Quick’ " said one, ‘let's invent a game with rules he'll never understand.’
In 1984, Radio 4 broadcast Everyman's Guide to Mornington Crescent, billed as a two-part documentary the game, with the first episode covering its history and the second explaining its rules. At the end of part one, it was announced that part two had been postponed indefinitely due to ‘scheduling difficulties’.
Published: 4 Feb 2022
